MORE FLYING BOMBS

Grey River Argus, 23 June 1944, Page 3

MORE FLYING BOMBS

ATTACKS ON ENGLAND Fighters’ Successes (Rec. 7.45.') LONDON, June 21. The flying bomb has finally become the name officially given to Hitler's new secret weapon. Since it first appeared it has received various names in the British press, including buzz bomb, bumble bomb, pilotless ’plane, flying bomb and doodlebug. Air crews engaged in shooting down the flying bomb dubbed it pilotless aircraft, or pac., and apparently intend to perpetuate this despite the official description. YESTERDAY MORNING'S RAIDS (Rec. 11.5) LONDON, June 22. Flying bomb attacks against southern England continued after midnight, but apparently less frequently than on the previous night. After dawn the Germans sent robots over southern England in what seemed greater numbers than during the night. Tempests, Typhoons, and Spitfires partolled the sky from the earliest light and shot down flyins bombs one after another. In one district they fell into the sea with a shattering noise. Others were intercepted when they crossed the coast, a proportion of them being shot down. They were still coming over after breakfast time. SPECIAL A.A- TEAMS CHOSEN. (Rec. 7.45.) LONDON, June 21. The weather yesterday, with low cloud, was good for flying bomb raids, says the “Daily Express,” and the Germans took advantage of it to send more missiles against southern England. Britain’s best anti-aircraft gunners have been moved to south England to deal with the flying bomb. The teams were selected months ago, before the first flying bomb appeared, and their sites were dug as far back as December. The teams have all the flying bomb routes through their area carefully ranged and "Sighted. They let the bomb reach a certain point before opening up. The bomb sometimes explodes in mid air. Some shell fragments clip the bomb’s wings or tan, bringing it to earth a short distancec 'further on. The area in the vicinity of the £ u us is fast becoming a dump for flying bomb parts. The “Daily Mail’s” aeronautical correspondent says: The enemy had planned to launch flying bombs simultaneously from a very wide stretcn of the French coast, and, commenting on the discovery of two flying bomo sites by Americans on the Cherbourg Peninsula, points out that Southampton, Portsmouth, Bournemouth and the Isle of Wight are all nearer Cherbourg than London is to Pas de Calais. DETAILS OF LAUNCHING SITE.S. RUGBY, JUne 21. Vice-Marshal Brereton stated today, that reconnaissance had now made it possible to describe the launching sites of flying bombs in some detail. The main part is an oblong concrete platform pointed toward England and camouflaged with paint. From this, the fying bombs ire launched. There are other buildings adjacent to the platform, used possibly for storage for the final stages of the assembly of the bomb. I'he largest of these buildings is in the shape of an ice hockey stick—.here is an elbow, and one of the extending parts is about twice the length of the other. The lauhching sites are mostly in or at the edge of a wood or orchard and have the advantage of both natural and artificial camouflage. The platforms and buildings are low and come under rhe shelter of the trees. Some of the ouildings are made to resemble farmhouses. Briefing officers have told the crews that only actual hits will damage installations. “Near misses” are not good enough. Most of the bases are in Pas de Calais in the line running from St. Omer to Abbeville. All are inland 15 to 20 miles. The platforms are not in clusters but widely separated, usually in unpopulated areas. LAUNCHING SITES CAPTURED RUGBY, June 21. Americans advancing in Cherbourg Peninsula have captured some launching platforms for pilotless planes. Experts have now been sent to examine them and study the secrets they contain. These Cherbourg installations, like those at Pas de Calais, have been bombed by the Allies for some time past.

Daylight to-day has seen some enemy activity over southern- England, and there were casualties and iamage. At one time, the Germans aunched seven robots in 90 minutes. A fighter squadron shot them all flown.

KING VISITS BOMB DAMAGE

LONDON, June 21. More German robot bombers '•ame over southern England after daybreak to-day, and some were shot down before they could penetrate inland. This followed a during which there was a slight in-n-ease in air activity over southern England. Damage and casualties are reported. . Crowds cheery the King when he visited sites in southern England damaged by flying bombs. The King rnent some time examining the damage and walked among the crowds, chatting to many as he passed. Describing how flying bombs were shot down by R.A.F. Tempests recently, a flying officer said he was putting a Tempest through a trial flight when over the radio he heard That a flying bomb was approaching. He shot ‘at it. The first burst shot uieces off the tail unit. Ihe next knocked away its starboard win .®- The thing turned slowly over in flight flew along upside down, then dived sharply and exploded m open country.

GERMAN PRISONERS IN “DESTROYED” TOWN.

(Rec. 5.5.) LONDON,-June 21. “We must be somewhere else,” said one German prisoner of war, who was marched ashore at a south coast ish port, because according to tne German news report they had been given the port was not supposed to .exist, says the “Daily Mail.” The pnsoners saw t-he name of the town on the municipal dustcart, whereas it was one of the ports which Dr. Goebbels declared to be a sea of flames, m ruins as a result of flying bomb attacks. The prisoners blinked and stared around them in puzzled bewilderment. The same reaction was discernible as each group came ashore: First, bewilderment, then disbelief, and then reluctant conviction, which was finallv followed by. crestfallen seriousness. One pallid, scholarly, bespectacled German medical officer asked a reporter: “Do you think the flying bomb will have a decisive influence on the war ?” The Germans received the’r answer as they drove

to the prison and saw unspoiled towns and villages, well-stocked shops, ana normal-looking people, also endless convoys of supplies en route to •France. The-v reached camp in a more sober frame of m’nd than when they last listened to the Berlin rad’o.